Another Journal

It’s true, I’m in placement.  Sometimes I sit here and wonder how in the hell I got here.  Things aren’t the same as when I ended up in placement before.  I feel good.  I’m having only minor symptoms that have stuck with me through almost all medication changes.  Mostly thought withdrawal and mild paranoia, even a stray hallucination or two.  But this is extremely manageable, an improvement from what I have been feeling for years.  Sure, the meds sometimes make it so I can make it through, but this time I feel actual contentment, even if I am stuck in this RCF with no one to talk to but the staff.  While I sometimes find myself bored and sometimes even lonely, I got through a baby sighting without having to spend more than one day to myself.  It’s almost unbelievable.  What’s even more unbelievable is that this might actually last.

I know what you’re thinking, that I’m manic, right?  Wrong!  No euphoria, no endless optimism, no bad decisions, just contentment.  I have had thoughts hoping for mania.  Hey, I’m human!  Who wouldn’t want to feel (metaphorically) like they’re having an endless orgasm?  I thought there for awhile, when I first got here, that I may have a mania spell.  I wasn’t sleeping (due to a side effect of the Latuda) and that usually leads to a crash, which then usually leads to a manic spell.  Other than hoping I would feel that addicting euphoria I knew I didn’t want to make the same bad decisions I made in the other RCF.

When I was at my previous placement, three years ago, I went through a roller coaster ride of emotions and moods, including one lasting spell of mania.  As I have done in my past, I found the worst possible person for me and decided they must be mine.  This instance it was a 38 year old looking for a mommy.  It would be so much simpler if I could just let them go when the mania is over, but no, then I have to take care of them, because that’s just what I do.  While I helped this man better his life, the relationship only hurt mine.  I finally woke up and let him go.  His words were, “I don’t think you know what you’re doing.”  Trust me, I knew exactly what I was doing:  Dropping dead weight.

Perhaps now that I am finally more aware of the recurring patterns in my illness I will be able to keep my contentment, perhaps even ward off falling off the deep end and landing in the emergency room.  The awareness of how my actions were affecting my family and those I cared about turned me so far around, and perhaps this awareness will put me that much closer to managing my illness the right way.  It’s easy to say when I feel good, I know.  People just don’t seem to understand how hard it is to use coping skills when it takes all the energy you have to just take your medication when you’re down that deep in depression.  They don’t understand how hard it is to make the right decisions when you feel so good making the wrong ones when you’re manic.  Could you really force yourself to take that prescription that would end the best feeling you’ve ever had?  And then, could you hold in the tears when you make the right decision and it’s over?

Knowing what I do now, while I’m healthy, will hopefully carry over into when I have “mood swings” or psychotic symptoms.  Experience counts for something, right?  Maybe I don’t have to give up on all of my dreams.  And who knew that being forced to focus on the small things would lead to new dreams.  A step toward acceptance?  It’s possible, I suppose.

I venture to wonder who I would be without this illness.  I believe that I certainly would do great things and help people, but I don’t think I would be this passionate.  I would most likely have had a family and a high paying job, but I wouldn’t meet some of the most amazing people that I’ve met, even briefly, along the way.  I would never have appreciated the parts of myself that have begun to shine as I’ve struggled this far, something I easily forget when the depression takes over.

Some people say that if they could go back and change their life, knowing what they know now, they wouldn’t change a thing.  I don’t believe them.  There are certainly things I would change if I could.  But as much as I hate to think about the future, I hate even more to think about the past, especially the idea that I could have done something differently.  As much as I hate it, much like the rest of the world I replay so much over and over in my mind; the conversation I had with the social worker, the reaction I had to the doctors, choosing the donut over the fruit.  There is very little that quiets my mind.  It’s hard not to get caught up in the thoughts.  In my mind I’m reminded of a nurse telling me to use my coping skills. Ah, yes, coping skills.

I believe that everyone’s list of coping skills should be different.  I have a list as long as my leg and like many things I can give you ten of them off the top of my head.  This, what I’m doing now, is one of my coping skills.  When I’m thinking things in my head sometimes they sound so eloquent that I feel I need to write them down.  I wonder sometimes what the world would think if they really knew the thoughts in my head.  Here they are, where no one reads them, but just putting them to “paper” makes me feel better.  It’s like talking to a therapist that doesn’t argue with you.  Arranging the things in my head in an understandable way leads me to think more clearly about what I’m writing.  Clearer thoughts = easier to process. 

Today, to fill time, and to free me from persisting thoughts, I used another one of my coping skills:  Painting.  I don’t have the imagination most of the time to start on a blank canvas and come out the other side with a beautiful, elegant picture.  Instead I paint wooden things, useful things, from the craft store.  This I started in the hospital, like many things I do with my free time now when I’m not in the hospital.  Focusing on the painting clears my mind and keeps my hands busy.  Making jewelry is something I also started in the hospital that gives me the same benefits.

What they don’t tell you in therapy is that there are negative coping skills.  My go-to coping skill is picking at my fingers.  I pick at hangnails and my cuticles or anything a little dry that could turn into something bigger for me to pick at.  I’m not proud of it, and I do things to try to lessen how much I do it, like paint my nails and keep my hands busy.  The thing is, picking at my fingers relieves stress, that’s why it’s a coping skill (be it a negative one).  It’s a negative coping skill because it also causes me stress.  People notice me picking and it makes me self conscious, plus the physical damage it leaves is embarrassing.  It’s not something I would recommend for a stress reliever.

Part of the reason I am here, at this facility, is because I tried another negative coping skill that many young people resort to.  I am not advocating for this and I don’t recommend anyone try it, it’s not worth it.  I cut myself on purpose, with no intent to commit suicide.  I was deeply depressed and looking for a way to feel better.  I was trying to just make it to my next doctor’s appointment.  I instantly regretted what I had done and went to the emergency room.  That put me in for a stay in the psych ward.